Another Mel Brooks Horror

I previously said that Young Frankenstein was my second favorite Mel Brooks film.  After watching Dracula: Dead and Loving It again, I realized that that was a lie.  Maybe it’s the generation gap, if that’s even it, but I find Brooks’ humor of the 90’s far funnier than that of the 70’s.  And don’t expect that I mean the material is cruder.  It might be, but the gags I find funniest are one’s that are more classically slap-stick.  For example, one of my favorite scenes in the movie is when Dracula attempts to lure Mina out of her bedroom but the maid complicates things, resulting in gags such as tripping over footstools and two people knocking each other over.  So basic but it almost always brings tears to my eyes from laughter.  Leslie Nielson is… the most interesting Dracula I’ve seen.  It may be because I have the image of Bela Lugosi stuck in my mind, who was quite the opposite of an old man, but Nielson’s characterization may be more based off of Gary Oldman’s Dracula impersonation.  Ironically, throughout the movie Dracula views everyone else as the simpletons (and they are!) but he neglects to notice how big of a simpleton he is himself.  To truly understand the humor in this movie, you have to know the source (duh).  Like how Young Frankenstein was a parody of the 1931 Frankenstein film and The Bride of Frankenstein, Dracula: Dead and Loving It satirized elements of the classic Lugosi film and the 1992 Bram Stoker’s Dracula.  Peter MacNicol, who plays Renfield, did the most amazing job at replicating Dwight Frye’s own portrayal of said character in the 1931 film.  A lot of Frye’s scenes from the original movie were replicated, and MacNicol was very close in copying them, of course taking Renfield’s insanity over the top to the point of extreme idiocy.  MacNicol imitates Frye’s voice perfectly and even has Frye’s creepy laughter down pat.  Also, I love Amy Yasbeck!  She acts so silly and frazzled and her voice adds to the humor ten-fold.  Mel Brooks as Dr. Van Helsing was ok.  He, as an actor, isn’t as good as the ideas he manages to create.  I do enjoy the scene when Van Helsing and Jonathan Harker drive the stake into Lucy’s heart, causing gallons of blood shooting out at them, but that is more about the gag than Brooks’ acting.  He makes me laugh, so I forgive him.  

For more information on this movie, click on the link below:

 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112896/